Diaspora/Website

You’re all set to start using diaspora*! Click the pod name or <span class="click">Stream</span> in the top left of the screen to start.

If you want to meet and be welcomed by the diaspora* community and are feeling confident enough, make a <strong>public</strong> post now to introduce yourself and include the <span class="click">#newhere</span> tag. Making public posts containing tags is a great way to make new friends on diaspora*. If you’re not sure about doing this now, don’t worry – we’ll take you through your first post step by step in %{part_link}.

Using the interface

You’re now looking at an interface that might be unfamiliar to you. (If you’re still on the edit profile page, click the pod name or <span class="click">Stream</span> at the left-hand end of the black header bar.) Let’s have a quick look at the layout and start to get familiar with it.

Because of the decentralized and open-source nature of diaspora*, it is possible for pod administrators to customize their pods. Therefore, depending on which pod you’re on, the interface might look very slightly different to how it’s described here. However, the essential elements should all be present, even if they are arranged slightly differently.

The main interface can be divided into four parts.

At the top of the screen is the header bar, which always remains in place, even when you scroll down the page. This header bar contains:

Beneath the header there are two columns:

In the sidebar you’ll see links to the different content views available in diaspora*: <span class="click">Stream</span>, <span class="click">My activity</span>, <span class="click">@Mentions</span>, <span class="click">My aspects</span>, <span class="click">#Followed tags</span> and <span class="click">Public activity</span>. We’ll explain these next. There are also some links to help you invite your friends, welcome new users, find help, connect to external services such as Twitter, Tumblr, and Wordpress (if available on your pod), post to diaspora* from the rest of the web (the diaspora* “bookmarklet”) and on some pods, contact information for the pod’s administrator and a button to donate to the costs of keeping your pod running.

The main column contains the content stream with a “publisher” box at the top. This is where the magic happens! We’ll cover using the publisher in %{part_link}.

The different views available in diaspora* are:

Posts in the stream are ordered according to the time of the original post.

Your “My activity” stream shows any posts which you have either liked or commented on. This is a useful way of catching up on any interactions you’ve been having in diaspora*. Posts in this stream are ordered according to the latest activity (comment or like) on each post.

This displays any posts made by other people @mentioning you. We’ll discuss @mentions in %{part_link}.